Cleaning Tips · Real Project · Case Study

Construction Cleaning the $21M Winter Haven Rec Center: 591 Crew-Hours

Over a 16-month contract, Orchid put in about 591 crew-hours across 56 visits at Winter Haven's new $21 million, 37,616 sq ft Recreation & Cultural Center, as cleaning subcontractor to general contractor The Collage Companies. Our final punch-list clean wrapped April 29, 2026, the day before the public ribbon cutting.

By Beverly Hughes, Commercial Operations Lead, Orchid Cleaning Service; landed Orchid's first commercial office building and built its commercial division.

Two Orchid Cleaning crew members in hard hats and safety vests with push brooms outside the Winter Haven Recreation & Cultural Center during construction

The project

The City of Winter Haven rebuilt the center at 801 MLK Blvd NE: 20,000 sq ft of general space plus a 17,616 sq ft double gym, with a zero-depth-entry pool, splash pad, fitness center and library/tech center. Ground broke January 3, 2025, and it opened April 30, 2026. An $863,974 federal Community Development Block Grant (HUD, through Polk County) and state funding helped pay for design and early phases.

The 17,616 sq ft double gymnasium at the Winter Haven Recreation & Cultural Center during construction — Inside the 17,616 sq ft double gymnasium during our final construction clean.

The numbers, from our job records

Measure	From our job records
Contract length	16 months (early 2025 → April 2026)
Completed crew visits	56, across 49 working days
Total crew-hours on site	~591
Peak crew size	10 cleaners at once (final-clean push)
Cleaners who worked the project	28
Final punch-list clean	April 29, 2026, the day before the ribbon cutting

Four phases

Progress cleans (2025): recurring two-cleaner visits keeping the site office and finished areas usable
Rough cleans: debris, dust and sticker removal as trades finished each area
Final clean (Feb to Apr 2026): multi-day visits with up to 10 cleaners on the gym floor, locker rooms, glass and every surface
Punch-list cleans: touch-ups in the last 72 hours before handover

The general contractor walking two Orchid Cleaning crew members through the unfinished interior of the Winter Haven Recreation & Cultural Center — Walking the building with the general contractor before a progress clean, with lifts still in place and trades still working.

Compliance on a federally funded build

The HUD grant meant the GC had to prove every subcontractor stayed compliant for the life of the project. Every Orchid employee on site was submitted for a full background check, and our crews stayed OSHA-compliant for all 16 months: PPE, site-safety orientation, and working alongside electricians, painters and flooring crews in an active construction zone. Our paperwork never held the project up.

Building something in Polk County?

Progress, rough and final cleans for GCs and builders, with background-checked, OSHA-compliant crews of up to 10 cleaners. See post-construction cleaning or more of our commercial work.

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Methodology & sources. Visits, crew-hours, crew sizes and dates are from our job records. Crew-hours add up each cleaner's own clocked time on site; assignments with no clock record count as zero, so totals are conservative. An earlier version of this page multiplied each visit's job clock by crew size, which overstated the total; it has been corrected down. Project facts: City of Winter Haven opening announcement, facility page and project engagement page; Patch/Lakeland (CDBG grant); Winter Haven Daily (groundbreaking). Collage's role as general contractor is from our subcontract.

Free to cite with attribution to Orchid Cleaning Service (orchidcleaningservice.com). Published July 2026.